'Meet your MP' public meeting

Broadband decision could hit house prices

Property prices in Clayhidon and other Blackdowns parishes
could fall following news that they have been dropped from the superfast
broadband programme.Clayhidon’s chances of getting fast internet access within
this decade have shrunk to zero after the parish and four other villages were
reclassified as “Out of programme”.“These villages are not even going to be surveyed to find
out how difficult it is to get fibre broadband to us,” broadband campaigner
Graham Long told a 'meet your MP' public meeting in Clayhidon Parish Hall on 1 August.He said Connecting Devon & Somerset had launched its new
website with broadband deployment maps down to seven-digit postcode detail. On
previous maps Clayhidon, Churchstanton, Smeatharpe, Rawbridge and Upottery were
all defined as “Under Evauluation – further planning and survey work will be
carried out under the CDS programme.”On the new maps, all these villages and large areas of the
Blackdown Hills are now defined as “Out of programme – your postcode is not
covered by our programme to get fibre broadband to 90% of premises by 2017.”Quoting evidence from estate agents that slow internet
access was affecting the saleability of homes, he told local MP Neil
Parish: “These villages are not even going to be surveyed to find out how
difficult it is to get fibre broadband to us.“On the question and answers section of the new website it says
‘Some locations are so geographically remote that superfast broadband will not
be possible due to technical reasons or prohibitive costs’.He pointed out that survey work for fibre broadband will
take place at Princetown, on Dartmoor, which
has a telephone exchange with fewer lines than any exchange in the Blackdown
Hills, at the end of next year.LundyIsland, 12 miles off the North Devon
Coast, with a resident
population of 28 people, will be surveyed for fibre broadband this October.

This is not acceptable says MPNeil Parish MP reacted strongly to the revelation that Blackdown parishes had been dropped from BT's superfast broadband programme."I will be straight on to BT," he said. "This is something we have to be able to check. Ministers have to be made aware of what is going on."He added: "We have got to do something about it. This is not acceptable."The issue is becoming especially urgent because from next year farmers will be forced to submit their Single Farm Payment claims online, a task that will be difficult if not impossible with the current speed of broadband in Clayhidon. Mr Parish said he wanted to ensure we obtained value for money from BT, but trying to find out what was happening was "like extracting teeth" because Devon County Council had signed a confidentiality clause with BT.BT was looking at other technical solutions for rural areas, he said, and it was likely that fibre optic would not be installed in all parts of the Blackdowns.

Tractors speeding through Clayhidon and the
growing menace of potholes were among the issues which drew complaints from
residents attending a public meeting with local MP Neil Parish on 1 August.
Lynda Higgins, landlady of the Half Moon Inn, said she was
concerned about the safety of her young son caused by farm vehicles roaring
past her pub. She had asked the police to take action. Other speakers agreed
that some tractor drivers were going “way too fast”.
Mr Parish pointed out that lots of silage work was done
by contractors. He suggested a polite letter from the parish council to all
local farmers, an idea supported by the vice
chairman, Sue Hay.The spine-jarring issue of potholes occupied much of the meeting. Parish
Council chairman Richard Kallaway said lots of roads were quite good but in
some parts “we are driving over speed humps all the time”.He told the story of a neighbour who had been forced to spend
£2,000 replacing all four wheels and tyres on his seven month-old car because of
damage by potholes.“Generally roads were better 10 years ago by a long chalk,” he
said, and he wondered why Somerset and East Devon roads were better than ours in Mid Devon.Mr Parish replied that the number of potholes had quadrupled this
year, and he knew that many were not repaired with hot tarmac, which meant they
soon needed mending again.Roads were the responsibility of the county council and Devon “has
as many roads as Belgium”.He said there was “a terrific amount to do”,
but he invited the parish council to send him a list of roads it was concerned
about and he would tackle the county about them.Challenged by parish councillor Alex Hill to explain why a
wealthier Britain
could not afford to maintain roads as well as 40 years ago, the MP said
spending on schools and health had been protected at the expense of highways. The
country could not go on spending money, but the government had already cut the
deficit in half.”Richard Kallaway added that they understood the problem was money,
but “there comes a time when you can’t keep patching”.